A Beginner’s Guide to Hearts

I get all the high scores in hearts. Unfortunately for me, that’s the opposite of what you should be trying to do.

While you can pick up something like solitaire fairly easily, hearts sometimes feels counterproductive. It’s about scoring as low as possible. And at first the rules are seemingly complicated. Like poker, you don’t know till you know.

But then you play it a bit more and start to get into it. You start to learn how to get low points. Maybe you even start to think things through more tactically.

That’s the beauty of hearts – there is definitely a tactic to it. And once you learn how to play, you’ll start to get a knack for it.

So today we’re going to go through some top beginners tips to help you start to develop those tactical muscles.

Top Beginners Tips for Hearts

The key to a hearts card game, like any card game, is to spend some time getting used to exactly what it is you have to do. There are plenty of places online where you’ll be able to get a feel for how to play in the best way possible: by actually playing it. And best of all, most of these places are free and available whenever the fancy takes you.

Learning the rules might be slightly harder than with other games though, given that they’re a tad complicated. This is made worse by the mountain of “simple” explanations you’ll find online that are anything but. You’ll want to get rid of these cards first for some unexplained reason, while also keeping hold of this entire suit and whatever you do don’t put down the queen of spades, or do.

Lost yet? Me too.

So if you’re a beginner to hearts, here’s the simplest explanation you’ll see today.

Hearts is a game for (around but usually) four players where the aim is to have as low a score as possible. If you get 0 – and you can – or as close as you can, then you’ll be in with a good chance of winning.

You must pick three cards to give to an opponent: first to the player on your left, then to your right in the next round, then across the table in the third hand. No cards are traded in the fourth round. Then you repeat.

Winning Your Games

The player with the two of clubs starts the game. Other players must follow suit unless they can’t. Here’s the key to hearts that is rarely explained: the highest number in the first suit that is picked in a trick wins. So if someone plays an Ace (which is high) in a suit in which you have no cards, you can dump a heart (worth one point) or even the queen of spades (which is worth 13 points). And that’s how you win.

With that said, you can’t play a heart until a heart has been played. They’re off-limits until it’s the only suit someone can play at a given time.

At this point, the tactical parts of hearts should be obvious. You try to get through an entire suit as soon as possible so when that suit is played, you can ditch your high-value hearts (or the queen of spades) on your opponents. You have no risk of losing the hand, so you can unleash both barrels.

If that sounds simple, remember that every player is trying to do the same to you. You have to keep track not only of what cards have been played, but what types of card each player is putting forward. Is a suit exhausted? Has the queen of spades been played? Is now a good chance to play that ace of hearts?

In many ways hearts is more tactical than a lot of other similar card games. The element of luck is still there, of course. As with any game where something is randomly dealt, there will be some hands where you have to work harder than others.

Conclusion

But unlike most card games, knowing when to play something is almost as important as knowing the basic rules. That makes it more important than usual to get in your time actually learning the game – especially if you’re going to want to play with real money. Hold off on that until you’re confident in your decision-making skills.

Take your time, learn to love the game and you’ll see that this is a pastime that is surprisingly deep. Start playing and you might just find it difficult to stop.